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InnoTab Max Blue

£114.99

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Developmental Benefits

Imaginative Play

Discovery Exploration

Cognitive Development

Basic Maths Skills

Sensory Development

Reading Comprehension

Problem Solving

Visualisation Memory

Word Building

Language Development

Creative Play

Hand Eye Coordination

Developmental Benefits

InnoTab Max Blue

Imagination and exploration through interaction with characters.
Children’s imagination is active from an early age. Imaginative play has links to what psychologists call ‘social pretend play’. Young children pretend or imagine that, for instance a wooden block is a cake and they carefully ‘cut’ it. A large proportion of pretend play tends to be social. Imaginative play begins when infants play and pretend with adults. As young children develop they begin to try to engage other children in social pretend play. Young children in nursery benefit from engaging in imaginative play. It helps them to begin to understand that other children think differently to them and have different ideas.
Children can engage in imaginative play with other children where they have agreed on a story or scenario that they want to act out. Young children playing with toys use their imagination to invent scenarios and play out the consequences. They can use characters to explore scenarios and act out scripts such as going shopping or bedtime. Imaginative and social pretend play is beneficial for children as it allows them to explore different ways of viewing the world. Children who use their imagination when playing with other children are increasing their social competence and their understanding of other people. In a study where we observed children playing in a nursery we found that young children engaged in imaginative play, often using the toys in unexpected ways. Children’s imagination benefits from the opportunity to play with all types of toys.

Heightens curiosity and encourages exploration.
Even young babies love to learn about the world through exploration. Kicking and waving their arms while lying in their cot can lead them to discover that a kick can make a banging sound. Exploration and play are closely linked in infants where, for example, discovering that a toy makes a noise leads to infants repeating the action that made the noise. Babies learn a great deal through repetition. Once babies are either crawling or walking their mobility gives them more opportunities to explore their world. Babies need to satisfy their curiosity about an object or toy by approaching and handling it. Adults can influence an infant’s confidence about the world by encouraging and smiling at them when they approach an unfamiliar object or toy. Babies can show uncertainty about a new toy and in order for them to confidently explore and discover it they need the emotional reassurance from their parent or caregiver. The confidence to explore and discover new things develops during infancy and creates a healthy curiousity about the world throughout childhood.

Stimulates critical thinking through memory and logic games.
An infant’s thinking skills are influenced by physical activity. Cognitive development is the change in abilities such as attention, memory, problem solving and language. Research has shown that infants’ thinking skills develop as they act on the world with their eyes, ears, hands, feet and mouth. Babies learn about the world when they reach, crawl, put objects in their mouths, and drop or bang toys to make a noise. These interactions with the physical world enable babies to begin to understand their surroundings. For example, placing an interesting toy just out of reach of babies stimulate their interest and encourages them to move. As the child grows and develops the brain changes in response to the child’s interaction with the world. Learning about the world through play strengthens connections in the brain; this enables infants and children to attain a greater understanding of their surroundings. Cognitive development can be a social activity; adults help infants and children to understand more about their world by presenting them with games and problems that stimulate their thinking and expand their knowledge base. An infant’s and child’s interactions with objects and people, and the consequent changes in the brain, are the building blocks of development.

Develops counting and number identification.
Even young babies can discriminate between a small set of objects and a large set of objects. Young children learn to match their culture’s number words and symbols (e.g. 1, 2, and 3) to specific quantities. Research has shown that maths skills can improve with practice; young children who are given plenty of opportunity to work and play with numbers and counting will improve their basic maths skills. Counting rhymes are very popular with babies and young children and teach them basic maths concepts in a fun way. A young child may make mistakes when learning to count (e.g. missing out the number 6 when counting 10 bricks). But this young child is still demonstrating the basic maths ability; linking number words to actual numbers, realising that each item can only have one number word, and that the numbers have a sequence. Number games, learning about sequences and singing counting rhymes all help to enhance children’s basic maths skills. Repetition is also important, for instance, singing counting rhymes over and over again gets babies used to number words and their sequence. Toys that count as babies, for instance, place bricks in a slot and computer games that present children with fun maths problems are also useful learning tools. Play and practice with numbers is fun for babies and is essential for the development of young children’s understanding of quantity.

A variety of textures, visuals and sounds stimulate sensory development.
Sensory development is intimately related to motor development. Babies are born into a world that stimulates their senses and to which they react. These reactions are bodily movements which create learning experiences. Sensory development in babies can be facilitated through toys that provide opportunities for them to experience sounds, visuals and textures. Young infants need to be presented with an adequate but not too great amount of sensory stimulation. From an early age babies use touch to investigate their world; as they learn to reach they begin to run their tongue and lips over toys and then look at them. Tactile stimulation is also combined with other sensory information. Babies can perceive input from different sensory systems in a unified way; for instance, vision and touch are closely coordinated when using a shape sorter. Babies who handle shapes and also fit them through a hole are learning to solve problems through touch and sight. Infants also learn about the links between sights, sounds and feel of toys when these are demonstrated by adults. They begin to associate the sight and sound of a rhythmically shaken rattle or the nursery rhyme played by a particular toy. During the first year of life infants’ visual development is rapid and they begin to identify objects through shape, colour and texture. They also develop the ability to visually track objects. Toys give babies and young children many opportunities to enhance their sensory development.

Expand understanding of writing and gather information from text.
Expand understanding of writing and gather information from text.

Develops logic skills and strategic thinking through memory.
Babies become increasingly adept at solving problems as their motor skills become more finely tuned. Problem solving in infancy and childhood is about directing attention towards a goal and behaving in such a way as to achieve a successful outcome. For instance, a young infant who sees an adult hide a toy under a blanket will cease to look for it whereas an older infant will pull away the blanket to reveal the toy. These types of actions are the foundations of problem solving behaviour. Babies and children love games where they have to find a hidden object; they can have fun and at the same time increase their problem solving capabilities. Babies love to explore and experiment with the world. At the end of the first year infants are exploring the features of objects by handling and playing with them in new ways. For instance, when babies are trying to fit a block through a hole they will twist, turn and push it until it fits through the space. Babies are also expanding their problem solving skills by learning to look for objects in more than one place. Adults can help with the development of problem solving in young children by directing attention to the potential solution to a problem. As children grow they learn to direct their attention and plan their actions. Thinking about actions ahead of time and planning what do next is all part of problem solving. Playing games, whether it is on a computer or with another person can enhance problem solving skills.

Engaging graphics & visualisation activities develop memory.
As babies develop they begin to use mental pictures of objects that are no longer within their field of vision. These memory skills can be enhanced through presenting visual stimuli more than once; repetition is essential for the development of memory skills. Young infants’ memories are influenced by context; for instance, they can imitate an adult’s actions with a toy but only if the toy is identical in colour and features to the one that the adult played with. Older infants can remember, for instance, how to press a toy animal to make a sound even if the toy is slightly different to the one which the adult used to demonstrate. Infants’ memories become less context dependent at the same time that infants start to crawl and walk. Giving babies plenty of opportunity to explore their world allows them to enhance their memory skills. As children’s attention span increases so do their memory strategies. This means that children can use deliberate mental activities, such as visualisation, to increase the chances of retaining information in working memory and then shifting it to their long-term knowledge base. Lots of rehearsal and organisation is needed to use memory to its full advantage; repetition is an important part of both infant and childhood learning. Children can both learn and practice memory strategies using toys and games. Toys that encourage children to remember visual stimuli, answer questions and then repeat the activity over again enhance learning.

Expands Vocabulary through age appropriate words.
In the first year of life infants are exposed to a spoken language but it is rare for them to be able to produce words. Baby sign language helps during this formative period where Infants understand certain words but cannot produce them verbally. Infants use symbolic language when they gesture and can even use a sign to mean a word. There is a gap between how many words babies understand and how many words that they can say. During the second year toddlers begin to produce words and are building their vocabulary; they can be using around 50 words by the middle of their second year. By the time a child is 6 years old they will have an extensive vocabulary of around 10.000 words. They achieve this large vocabulary through practice, repetition and by storing the words in their long term memory. Children learn about 5 new words a day and games and toys can help expand their vocabulary. Once a child has learned the meaning of a word it becomes part of their vocabulary; this leads to faster comprehension of text and frees up space in their working memory for new words to be learned. Object and action words are used extensively in younger children’s vocabulary. Toys and games that reflect the types of words that are most common in young children’s vocabulary reinforce learning. Objects, for example ball and table, are often pointed to and named by adults when the child is young. Action words then begin to be used, such as, ‘put the ball on the table’. The next stage in word building is the use of ‘state’ words which are words that modify the noun such as ‘my ball’ or ‘red ball’. Word games are a fun way to reinforce understanding of the pronunciation and meaning of words.

Introduces the alphabet, letter sounds and vocabulary.
Babies start to babble at an early age and this can be seen as the first signs of language. They are predisposed to pick up the sounds of the language that they hear around them. Adults can facilitate babies’ language development by playing with them, focussing on particular toys, reading books and naming everyday objects. The more babies are exposed to language the faster they will begin to pick up it up. There are social skills involved in language acquisition such as realising that it is necessary to wait until the other person has finished speaking. Babies begin to learn about conversational turn-taking from an early age; if a baby is babbling the adult waits for a pause and then talks to the baby. Babies learn to take turns even before they are using words. Social interaction is important for language development and turn-taking games are a fun and educational way for babies and young children to learn. Young children also need to practice their language skills. Toys that name alphabet letters and everyday words satisfy young children’s need for repetition and rehearsal when practicing words and sounds. For instance, young children can press a button repetitively to hear the same sound or word again. Babies and children learn a lot through repetition and pick up words rapidly in this way. Once children begin to read their vocabulary expands enormously.

Use imagination in a variety of ways and contexts to communicate ideas
When children engage in creative play they are showing that they have the ability to produce something new and original. Children benefit from opportunities where they are free to use their imagination and explore. In order for creative play to occur children need to be in an environment that is rich in stimulation. Curiousity will drive children to take part in creative play. Creative play is different from other forms of play; it enables children to develop confidence in their own abilities as they begin to think and work independently. Games and activities that provide choices and also a number of alternative solutions encourage a certain amount of risk-taking. Games with alternative answers can lead children to think creatively and differently. Children need encouragement to play and think creatively. Opportunities to engage in creative play boost children’s confidence and enable them to come up with better ideas. Children benefit from the knowledge they gain through creative play.

Aiming and concentrating on a target improves hand/eye coordination.
Humans have highly developed manual dexterity skills that distinguish them from any other species on this planet. This manual dexterity emerges during the infant’s first year and, with plenty of opportunities to manipulate and play with toys and objects, becomes a highly tuned ability. Babies will reach and grasp for objects in an uncoordinated manner from an early age. As they begin to gain control over their movements infants succeed in reaching for and grasping toys. The first attempts by babies to grasp toys in their hands involve using the palm of their hand with all their fingers around the object. As development occurs through physical maturation and plenty of opportunities to play with toys, grasping becomes more sophisticated. The use of the opposable thumb and index finger allows infants to pick up very small objects in what is termed a ‘pincer grasp’. This finely tuned motor skill emerges at the end of first year of life. The development of hand and eye coordination skills continues throughout childhood where opportunities to play games that require children to manoeuvre objects, build tall towers or hit targets on a computer screen facilitate the development of finely-tuned hand and eye coordination.

All new faster and even more powerful Innotab console!
Bonus free unlockable features include secure internet browser, Kid Connect Premium app, Movie Maker, Magic Beanstalk game and Art Studio.
Secure wireless connection to VTech’s Learning Lodge for easy downloading.
Features wish list so children can list requests and send to parents.
7 inch multi-touch capacitive touch screen.
Built-in rechargeable battery.

Best for ages:

3 to 9 Years

Highlights

All new Innotab console, with even faster processor! Features Kid Connect Premium, camera, wi-fi, internet browser, media player and lots more!

Description

Innotab Max is the next generation in children's interactive play! An even faster console features a 7 inch multi-touch screen, 2MP camera for photo and video taking, Kid Connect Premium app, wi-fi, kid-safe internet browser, Movie Maker app, media player, e-books and lots more. Connect to the VTech Learning Lodge to download videos, music, apps, e-books, games and more! There is 4GB of internal memory that is expandable with a microSD card (not included). Built-in rechargeable battery for portable play!

Product Number: 80-166803
NA Batteries Required

InnoTab Max Blue Manual

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InnoTab Max Blue

Developmental Benefits

Developmental Benefits

InnoTab Max Blue

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